Welcome to a screening of the silent film Arsenal (1929) with live soundtrack by Bronnt Industries Kapital. This event is part of Folkets Bio's 50th anniversary weekend. 

LIVE: BRONNT INDUSTRIES KAPITAL
The live soundtrack is composed and performed by Bronnt Industries Kapital. It was commissioned by the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine to accompany the restored print, and supported by the British Council. It received it's debut performance in Kyiv in 2015 at Mystetskyi Arsenal.

Bronnt Industries Kapital is based around British composer Guy Bartell, who works in the fields of film soundtrack, electronic music and sound art. He has recorded soundtracks for Tartan Films and the British Film Institute amongst others, including contemporary scores for the cult Swedish silent film Häxan. In Malmö Bronnt Industries Kapital has twice performed the live soundtrack of silent innovative documentary Turksib.

ARSENAL
Arsenal is the second film in Dovzhenko’s ‘Ukraine Triology’ (together with Zvenigora and Earth), released in 1929. The film focuses on an episode of the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917–1921) and Russian Civil War in which the Kiev Arsenal January Uprising of workers supported the Red/Bolshevik Army.

Arsenal was made during the short-lived VUFKU (All-Ukrainian Photo and Film Agency) era when Soviet Ukrainian cinema enjoyed relative independence from Moscow and reached formidable aesthetic and creative as well as commercial heights; all this was cancelled in 1930, with new Stalinist policy of centralisation and russification.

Arsenal has evoked comparisons with Picasso's Guernica for its compassionate, complex depiction of war, as well as with Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket in highlighting the absurdity of war.

The largest Ukrainian film archive Dovzhenko Centre is named after the Arsenal director Oleksandr Dovzhenko and it was founded in 1994 to celebrate the late director's 100th birthday.

INTRODUCTION
The screening will be introduced by Oleksandra Lastovetska, president of Ukraïnare.Nu – Swedish-Ukrainian Association. She will talk about the political circumstances in the beginning of the 20th century in Ukraine to help us understand the historical meaning of this period Dovzhenko chose for his work.

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Press for the Arsenal soundtrack:
"A terrifically intense soundtrack" – Sight & Sound, UK

"Bartell’s score is expertly judged – an echo chamber of horror for the film to resonate inside. I urge you to catch the film with this score whenever you can." – Pamela Hutchinson, The Guardian | Silent London, UK

"An extraordinary soundtrack for an extraordinary movie, Guy Bartell's sound score for Arsenal plugs the viewer directly into the nervous system of this shattering film." – John Sweeney